1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique of pressing a transfer film onto printed sheets of paper to transfer thereon gold foil, embossed patterns, hologram patterns, and the like, thereby to increase added value of the printed surfaces, and more particularly, to a method of winding up a transfer film that is capable of winding up the transfer film in a favorable manner as well as a device for performing transfer printing on printed sheets of paper.
2. Related Art
There is proposed a gloss finishing apparatus for providing added value to printed sheets of paper in the above-mentioned manner. The apparatus includes a varnishing unit that applies an ultraviolet curable resin varnish (also simply referred to as “a varnish”) onto the printed sheets of paper printed in a printing unit and a hologram forming unit that presses a transfer film onto the printed sheets of paper varnished in the varnishing unit to transfer patterns of the transfer film thereon. The transfer film is an endless reel wound around a total of four guiding rollers, i.e., a pair of pressing rollers disposed at the lower end and a pair of guiding rollers disposed at the upper end (e.g., see Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2006-315229 (FIGS. 1 and 2)).
In the gloss finishing apparatus according to Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2006-315229, since the transfer film has an endless structure without ends, which means that the transfer film can be used only for the length corresponding to the length of feeding path that is configured by the four rollers. Thus, the transfer film is necessarily repeatedly used, and there is a disadvantage in that the transfer film may be damaged at an early stage, which necessitates transfer film to be changed frequently.